Bookshelf Music

”In 2015, I was invited by curator Ingrid Chu at the Asia Art Archive (AAA) to create a new work to mark the AAA’s 15th anniversary. The librarians told me about a large archive of over 280 oral histories and conversations with Asian artists spanning some 27 years compiled by the pre-eminent historian of Asian Art Professor John Clark. I was initially a little paralyzed by the archive’s sheer volume. But after hours of listening the content of these conversation receded into the background: I found myself becoming fixated on a singular feature, something that gave these materials some sort of an anchor: Clark’s interview technique. With this technique, Clark asked few questions, but encouraged his interviewees to speak by nudging them along with small vocal cues of repeated ‘Hmms’ and ‘Ahs.’ This proved to be more successful with some artists than others, and sometimes long speechless moments would pass where one notices instead the activities in the room, the noises from the outside, or the music in the background. My assistant and I went through parts of the archive (we focused on interviews of artists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China) and edited out all of the actual interviews, leaving only the moments that bookended the things that were said.”